328 replies to this topic

[DAFF]

Accumulations were a heavy 3" closer to 4" I would say. Most falling during my nap. Hard to tell for in our area is open country with lots of blowing snow. Wnt to bed at 12am awoken by 1:12AM with the alarm and just woke up from another 60min snoose. Going to head back out around 9pm to do some sight checks.

Ready for the next system !!!

[michsnowfreak]

 DAFF, on 11 February 2012 - 06:47 PM, said:

Accumulations were a heavy 3" closer to 4" I would say. Most falling during my nap. Hard to tell for in our area is open country with lots of blowing snow. Wnt to bed at 12am awoken by 1:12AM with the alarm and just woke up from another 60min snoose. Going to head back out around 9pm to do some sight checks.

Ready for the next system !!!

Bring it on!!! I must have been in some sort of jackpot, because I have heard that 3-4" was a common number but definitely closer to 5" from DTW to my place (and again on the east side and into the Saginaw Valley). When I did depth measurments this morning in both my front and backyards as well as the neighbors (she doesnt mind lol), almost all non-drifted areas were 5" with just a few 4" spots, then I also have an 8-12" drift against the fence. I do notice the neighbor across the street in a sort of wind-tunnel has the center of his yard with some grass tips visible, leading to a foot drift against the house next door. And out near DTW in the more open area I know there were big drifts, so I know the problems open areas can face with stiff winds like this. I do think its more of a product of a moderate burst of snow several hours before the front, I was at 1.5" when the front came through, I know many others were at about a half-inch pre-front. Seems like the front and post-frontal was good for dumping 3" in many places.

[GordoTheHat]

Took this picture on my phone yesterday. Sorry the quality's not great.

 2012-02-10-PerfectSnowflakes4.jpg   77.34K   1 downloads

For about 15 minutes yesterday afternoon, the snow falling in Muncie was composed of individual, perfect, six-pointed snowflakes (the kind you see in textbooks). The flakes would last about five seconds before melting, but the snow was heavy enough that at any one time, there were about two dozen perfect flakes on the trash can lids. It's been a while since I've see flakes this perfect. </little things to take away from a crappy winter>

[DAFF]

^^^I will take a few billion more of those just south of detroit.....^^^

[BowMeHunter]

awesome pics! Snow pics>better than severe and bendy palm tree's and flying gas staion signs all day and night.. Blows my mind how you don't chase a couple hr away at most LES event but will waste gas 7 hrs away to fail on severe.

Must be more money in destruction pics.

[Ajdos]

Snow is melting pretty quickly today....Mostly sunny and slushy outside lol.

[michsnowfreak]

 Ajdos, on 12 February 2012 - 01:40 PM, said:

Snow is melting pretty quickly today....Mostly sunny and slushy outside lol.

Its not melting that much. Actually I was quite pleased at how relatively little it has been melting with full sun. Slushy in the streets that werent plowed, but thats to be expected. Keep in mind with all the blowing/drifting, some open areas the snow was quite thin so you will probably see some grass pickers.

Speaking of drifting, as you could see from my pics drifting was everywhere even residential areas, so imagine open fields. Windblown areas have grass pickers with big drifts down a ways. Look at this drift I found today, not bad for a snowfall of just under 5 inches!

[Toronto4]

Totals for Toronto area stations:

Downtown Toronto (University of Toronto) 5.8 cm
East York: 7.4 cm
North York (Environment Canada headquarters at Dufferin/Steeles): 6.0 cm
Buttonville Airport (Markham): 7.2 cm
Oakville (The Weather Network studios): 5.3 cm
Pearson Airport (YYZ): 1.2 cm (1.2 cm on the 10th + a trace on the 11th with 2.2 mm of rain)...LOL

The Pearson amount is surely an error. The 2.2 mm is supposed to be 2.2 cm for a total of 3.4 cm. Still on the low side compared to other stations, though.

[snowstormcanuck]

 Toronto4, on 14 February 2012 - 09:19 AM, said:

Totals for Toronto area stations:

Downtown Toronto (University of Toronto) 5.8 cm
East York: 7.4 cm
North York (Environment Canada headquarters at Dufferin/Steeles): 6.0 cm
Buttonville Airport (Markham): 7.2 cm
Oakville (The Weather Network studios): 5.3 cm
Pearson Airport (YYZ): 1.2 cm (1.2 cm on the 10th + a trace on the 11th with 2.2 mm of rain)...LOL

The Pearson amount is surely an error. The 2.2 mm is supposed to be 2.2 cm for a total of 3.4 cm. Still on the low side compared to other stations, though.

I had 5.5cm here, which seems to be a good fit with those numbers. Looks like the 4"+/10cm+ reported by Ottawa Blizzard and Snowstorms were probably due to measuring in drifts.

Pearson's BS is par for the course. Time to just start ignoring them. North York gives a good representation of suburban Toronto.

[Snowstorms]

 snowstormcanuck, on 14 February 2012 - 09:08 PM, said:

I had 5.5cm here, which seems to be a good fit with those numbers. Looks like the 4"+/10cm+ reported by Ottawa Blizzard and Snowstorms were probably due to measuring in drifts.

Pearson's BS is par for the course. Time to just start ignoring them. North York gives a good representation of suburban Toronto.

Forget Pearson...EC will bs now to get another record low haha.

As for my measurements. I measured in like 10 different spots. Some spots averaged 9-10cm....one of them was 14cm which I didn't believe but I added them all and divided by 10 and I got 11.8cm. The drifts in my area were closer to 6".

Here's Buttonville thus far

http://www.climate.w...012&timeframe=2

[snowstormcanuck]

 Snowstorms, on 14 February 2012 - 09:25 PM, said:

Forget Pearson...EC will bs now to get another record low haha.

As for my measurements. I measured in like 10 different spots. Some spots averaged 9-10cm....one of them was 14cm which I didn't believe but I added them all and divided by 10 and I got 11.8cm. The drifts in my area were closer to 6".

Here's Buttonville thus far

http://www.climate.w...012&timeframe=2

Well, even if you do multiple measurements, if you're measuring too close to your roof there's a good chance of contamination. You're in Woodbridge, right? I know how those backyards are. Very small. Tough to get a measurement away from some type of obstacle (fence, tree, etc).

I guess it's possible you got a locally higher amount, but there wasn't any banding, lake enhancement, TSSN, or other phenomenon that would have led to localized amounts.

[Ottawa Blizzard]

 Toronto4, on 14 February 2012 - 09:19 AM, said:

Totals for Toronto area stations:

Downtown Toronto (University of Toronto) 5.8 cm
East York: 7.4 cm
North York (Environment Canada headquarters at Dufferin/Steeles): 6.0 cm
Buttonville Airport (Markham): 7.2 cm
Oakville (The Weather Network studios): 5.3 cm
Pearson Airport (YYZ): 1.2 cm (1.2 cm on the 10th + a trace on the 11th with 2.2 mm of rain)...LOL

The Pearson amount is surely an error. The 2.2 mm is supposed to be 2.2 cm for a total of 3.4 cm. Still on the low side compared to other stations, though.

Downtown no longer takes temperature records do they? It seems they stopped in 2006, and they'd been taking them since 1839!

[Toronto4]

 Ottawa Blizzard, on 14 February 2012 - 11:16 PM, said:

Downtown no longer takes temperature records do they? It seems they stopped in 2006, and they'd been taking them since 1839!

There are two separate stations at the same downtown location at the University of Toronto: the manned station (for winter time measurements of snowfall and snow depth) and the automated station (year round temperature and precip readings). Up to the end of June 2003, both temperature and precip/snowfall readings were done by a human observer. However Environment Canada changed things starting in July 2003 and it hasn't changed since then.

[Toronto4]

 snowstormcanuck, on 14 February 2012 - 09:08 PM, said:

I had 5.5cm here, which seems to be a good fit with those numbers. Looks like the 4"+/10cm+ reported by Ottawa Blizzard and Snowstorms were probably due to measuring in drifts.

Pearson's BS is par for the course. Time to just start ignoring them. North York gives a good representation of suburban Toronto.

I'm liking the East York readings more and more. The location (somewhere in the O'Connor Dr and Greenwood Ave. area) is close enough to the downtown station. It looks like their readings are done by an Environment Canada employee or a retired one.